Spiral Staircase Systems

Lewes Design Contracts Ltd was founded in 1966. Starting out in a small workshop in Lewes, East Sussex. Our first staircase design, the DS (Domestic Stair) used a system of cast iron support brackets, laminated timber treads and handrails and steel rod balustrading. It proved to be a popular choice. With refinement, and a change to a cast aluminium... bracket, this system remains in production today as part of the DS range. The Company began to move away from furniture production to specialise in staircases and adopted the trading name of Spiral Staircase Systems. Commissioned to build a stair inside a minaret in Abu Dhabi, the team seized the opportunity for publicity by erecting the 75 foot stair on Newhaven beach, gaining coverage in the national press. Having outgrown our Lewes town centre premises, we moved to an old mill building in the nearby village of Glynde. We expanded our product range to include custom made helical stairs, using traditional materials alongside stainless steel and acrylic. Each stair was custom designed and detailed in our drawing office on drawing boards and tracing paper using imperial sizes. With extensive adaptation, this multi-story mill building with its woodwork department and drawing office remains our home to this day. We further expanded our workshops into a former chalk quarry opposite the Mill where a dedicated metalwork facility was built to construct all the structures required for the majority of our staircases. We also used this facility to carry out extensive research and development to push the boundaries of stair design. One of Spirals many technological advances in the early years, was the development of the seamless helical steel handrail an innovation that our competitors have struggled to emulate. We still use the same carefully calculated process to manufacture our helical handrails today. Spiral introduced our first CAD program PoweCad, which enabled us to start to draw the staircases digitally rather than by hand. A special helical staircase was commissioned ...Read More